Every time I look into epigenetic inheritance studies I run into a lot of finicky experiments like this, where the outcomes appear to be highly dependent on several variables that aren’t fully understood.
One group of researchers claims to have pinned down the results, but as someone outside of this world trying to interpret the studies it’s hard to know how well they’ve really controlled these finicky experiments to isolate the single effect (epigenetic inheritance) that they claim explains everything.
- Do C. elegans offspring show a modified behaviour unrelated to a changed genome sequence?
That is a fairly simple question. The answer to it should be simple too.
You always have to distill complicated papers that babble about things to a minimum statement.
This hardly follows.
"Is P equal to NP" is also a simple question.
It’s easy to say that the truth is simple if you ignore everything about exploring whether or not a paper is an accurate representation of the truth.
The behavioral test they used showed different results under different circumstances. Even variables like temperature might impact the behavior exhibited in the test.
> You always have to distill complicated papers that babble about things to a minimum statement.
Disagree. You always have to read the papers and understand the details.
The nurture part of it is already well established, this is the nature part of it.
However, this is not a net-positive for the folks who already discriminate.
The "faults in our genes" thinking assumes that this is not redeemable by policy changes, so it goes back to eugenics and usually suggests cutting such people out of the gene pool.
The "better nurture" proponents for the next generation (free school lunches, early intervention and magnet schools) will now have to swim up this waterfall before arguing more investment into the uplifting traumatized populations.
We need to believe that Change (with a capital C) is possible right away if start right now.
Incidentally, nobody yet I see has suggested that epigenetics could lead to better outcomes. I wonder why?
See people who can smell Parkinson's.
People who can tune a musical instrument by ear alone.
Researchers scraping bottom of the barrel like every other industry. You all see the new Ford without a door lock? Get to jump your car with two wires in the front bumper. Good luck in inclement weather.
The American cult is cooked. Good riddance Boomers, and know your role GenX. Or the death panel CEO won't be the last.
terminalshort•1h ago
nabla9•1h ago
epi- = outside
NotGMan•1h ago
But there might be other ways that some traits get inherited, eg by changing the cellular environment in the sperm/egg itself which could affect the offspring while keeping the genes the same.
agumonkey•1h ago
shevy-java•1h ago
Even the definition of a gene is not very accurate. Many important sequences yield a miRNA or another RNA. Only few sequences yield a mRNA. Some "genes" are just integrated viruses/phages/transposons etc... that were modified. One of the most fascinating one was the retrovirus in regards to the mammalian placenta: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4332834/ but there are many more examples. We are all DNA hybrids at the end of the day. The whole species concepts makes very little sense these days, IMO. I can see the use case for eukaryotes, but it makes no sense to me for bacteria yet alone viruses.
Aurornis•1h ago
It’s a very young field with a lot of open questions. The concept has been adopted and abused in the mainstream so you have to be careful to separate the science from the pseudoscience.
shevy-java•1h ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics#Definitions
That depends on the definition. But, if we use the modern definition, it emerged (or re-emerged) in the 1990s. It's not old, indeed, but I also would no longer call it "very young". It's soon 40 years in the modern definition, and much older if we include prior discussions.
the__alchemist•1h ago
shwaj•1h ago
__MatrixMan__•52m ago
If you inherit a virus from your mother, for instance, I think most would call that non-genetic inheritance, even though viruses have genes too. Same goes for methyl and acetyl markers, transcription factors, nutrients, toxins, and whatever else comes along for the ride in the meiotic cell.